"The repudiation of the so-called Public Debt of lndia incurred by the
foreign Government’ is too vague and too sweeping a statement in the programme
of a progressive and enlightened party. The Congress has suggested the only
real and statesmanlike proposition, namely, reference to an impartial tribunal
of the whole of the so-called Public Debt before any part can be taken over by
the future free Government of India."

This was the statement that Gandhi made in response to a pamphlet circulated
by the Socialist Party of India in 1939. Honesty demands that real debt be
paid. Gandhiji used the term “so-called” public debt and the Congress suggested
an impartial tribunal to assess the real extent of debt. By doing so, the
Congress had, on behalf of a future government of India, given its moral pledge
to pay off the public debt. Gandhiji suggested to his socialist friends that
they must honour the promises made by the predecessors. Gandhiji welcomed new
ideas but advised them to learn from the old as well.

Continuing his response to the note, the next point that he made concerned
Marxist ideology and its language. Gandhiji said, “The progressive
nationalization of all the instruments of production, distribution and
exchange’ is too sweeping to be admissible.” The example cited by Gandhiji is
beyond the comprehension of those who cannot think outside the realm of the
economy. The socialists must have found it strange and are likely to have cited
it as an example of Gandhijis idiosyncratic ways. Gandhiji wrote: “Rabindranath
Tagore is an instrument of marvellous production. I do not know that he will
submit to be nationalized.”

The example was outside strict economics. However, not many years later, we
would see how the socialist state apparatus of Soviet Union was used to curb
the freedom of literature and artists and sought to regulate their
“production’’.This shows that Gandhiji s analogy was not out of place. Masani’s
pamphlet also demanded cancellation of debts owed by peasants and workers.
Gandhiji objected to this as well:

"Cancellation of debts owing by peasants and workers’ is a proposition which
the debtors themselves would never subscribe to, for that will be suicidal.
What is necessary is an examination of the debts some of which, I know, will
not bear scrutiny."

In these views, Gandhi held
similar views to BR Ambedkar, who also spoke out against the British Raj's
mismanagement of Indian finances. Nehru drew upon the work of both Babasahib
and the Mahatma in creating his first five-year plan, in which he worked to
eliminate public debt accumulated during World War 2 under British rule.

Gandhiji had vast experience of the Indian peasantry and knew that they were
not so shameless as to not own up to genuine debts. He also knew that if these
real debts were cancelled along with the fake ones, the peasants would have
difficulty securing debts in the future; this would be suicidal for them.
Gandhiji was sensitive to the injustice that the socialist group wished to
point out and, hence, he also said that some debts would not bear scrutiny.

Next, Gandhiji raised an issue that bore the mark of his own economic
thinking, something that would probably not have occurred to the progressive
socialists. Gandhiji s concern was that the people should not become dependent
and feeble: "I should educate the masses to cultivate habits of thrift. 1
should not be guilty of maiming them by letting them think that they have no
obligation in the way of taking preventive measures in the matter of old age,
sickness, accident and the like."

His view on strikes was radical even for the socialists: "I do not
understand the meaning of the phrase ‘the right to strike.’ It belongs to
everybody who wants to take the risks attendant upon strikes."

Gandhiji asked Masani a question: “Does ‘the right of the child to care and
maintenance by the State’ absolve the parent from the duty of caring for the
maintenance of his children?” The Kibbutz in Israel did experiment with making
the community responsible for child-rearing but their experience taught them
that while the community may take economic responsibility, cultural and social
responsibilities have to be borne by the parents.

The pamphlet demanded the elimination of landlordism. Gandhiji saw in this
the intent to take over zamindari and talukdari lands. He was never in favour
of doing away with zamindars and the zamindari system; he suggested merely the
regulation of the relations between the landlords and tenants in order to
promote harmonious relations between them.The socialists would have found this
utterly reactionary. This was also quite contrary to the views of Ambedkar, who
was quite definite in wanting to eliminate the entire structure of Hindu
society, seeing that as the only possibility to destroy untouchability.

When you are healthy and well, you are not at all aware of health. Only an
invalid is aware of health. This seems contradictory but all the same true.
When you are absolutely well, you have no knowledge of health. When illness
knocks at your door, you become conscious of health. Only the invalids are
conscious of their bodies. Therefore in the Ayurveda, the indication af a
healthy person is the feeling of Godlessness. He is called healthy, who is not
aware of his body. If he is aware of the body, then he is ill. In fact, as soon
as you became conscious of some part of your body, that part is ill. If you
become aware of the stomach, you have an upset stomach. If you become aware of
the head, your head is ill. Have you ever been aware of the head without a
headache? If you are aware in the slightest bit. the illness is present in that
proportion. Health is a natural state. It is not aware of anything.

When a person really becomes simple, he is not aware of the fact that he has
become simple. He becomes so simple that if anyone comes and tells him he
appears a complex person, he readily agrees. He attains God and is merged so
much in Him, that if anyone tells him that he knows nothing, he readily agrees.
He becomes so non-violent that he is not conscious of his non-violence, for
this thought can come to a violent person only.

In the same manner the bulk and the miniature create the shape of each
other. The bulk looks big and the miniature small. The universe seems gigantic
and the atom, a miniature; but it is the conjunction of atoms that forms the
Universe. Remove the atoms and the Universe is nowhere. Remove the drop and the
Ocean will be no more, though the Ocean does not know that it is the drop from
which it is born. The ocean is nothing but a collection of drops; and if each
drop goes to form the ocean, the drop also is a miniature ocean. The drop can
be described in no other way. So it will not be wrong if we say that the drop
is a small ocean and the ocean is a big drop and this is very near the
truth.

That which we call the Extension, that which we call the Enormous, that
which we call the Universe are all atoms. So that which we call the Universe is
nothing but an atom, and that which we call an atom, is also the Universe.

"There is no difference between the body and the Universe," so say the
Rishis of the Upanishads. "There is no difference between the big and the
small; everything and nothing is one and the same." Lao Tzu says, "All the
differences we behold are nothing more than illusion."

The Chandellas—a Rajput clan, claimed descent from a Kshatriya. But most
modern scholars think that they sprang from the aboriginal Gonds and/or Bhars
and were promoted to the rank of Kshatriyas on the assumption of royal powers
by their leaders. They flourished in what is now known as Bundelkhand lying
between the Jumna on the north and the Vindhyas on the south in the modern
state of Vindhya Pradesh. It was then known as Jejakabhukti or Jajhoti.
Khajuraho with its magnificent temples, Kalanjar with its strong fortress,
Ajaygarh with its palace and Mahoba with its natural beauty were the centres of
the culture and achievements of the Chandellas. The Chandellas were Hindus and
devout worshippers of Shiva and Krishna but Buddhism and Jainism also had many
followers. They developed a magnificent school of architecture, examples of
which are still found at Khajuraho where the
main temple dedicated to Siva as Mahadeva, is 109 ft. in length, 60 ft. in
breadth and 116 ft. in height and contains excellent sculptures. The Chandellas
had a monarchical form of government and the succession not only to the throne
but also to the office of the ministers was hereditary. The Chandellas had an
opportunity of seizing the control of northern India after the decline of the
Pratihara power towards the close of the tenth century, but they proved unequal
to the task.

The Chandella dynasty was founded early in the ninth century A.D. by one
Nannuka Ghandella who overthrew a Pratihara chieftain and became lord of the
southern part of Jejakabhukti, or modern Bundelkhand. From Nannuka sprang a
dynasty of twenty kings, the earlier of whom were probably feudatories of the
Gurjara-Pratiharas. It was the seventh king Yasovarman who occupied the
fortress of Kalanjar and forced the contemporary Pratihara king Dcvapala to
surrender a valuable image of Vishnu, who was the first practically independent
ruler in the dynasty. His son Dhanga (c. A.D. 950-1008), the eighth in the line
of succession, was the most notable Ghandella king. He extended his dominion
over the whole of Jejakabhukti and took an active part in the Indian politics
of the time. In A.D. 989 or 990 he joined the league formed by Jaipal, king of
the Panjab, to resist Sabuktigin of Afghanistan and shared in his defeat.
Dhanga attained the age of one hundred years and then gave up his life by
drowning himself at Prayaga. Dhanga’s son Ganda shared in the defeat of
Anandapal, king of the Panjab, at the hands of Sultan Mahmud. The tenth king
Vijayapala (c. 1030-50) attacked Kanauj and defeated and killed its king
Rajyapal, lor having submitted to Sultan Mahmud, but he himself in his turn was
defeated soon afterwards by Sultan Mahmud. Though Sultan Mahmud did not retain
his conquest the defeat of Vijayapala so compromised the position of the
dynasty that none of the later twelve kings could play any important part in
contemporary politics and the dynasty gradually declined in power. The twelfth
king Kirttivarman {c. 1060-1100) was the patron of the author of the celebrated
mystical drama Prabodha Chandrodaya. The last Chan della king to play any
considerable part upon the stage of history was Paramardi, the seventeenth king
(c. 1165-1202) who was first defeated by Prithviraj, the Chauhan king of Ajmer
and then by Kutubuddin Ibak who captured the fort of Kalanjar. Chandella Rajas
lingered on in Bundelkhand as purely local chiefs until the beginning of the
14th century when with the death of the last king Hammiravarman the dynasty
came to an end.

The Chanella kings ruled over Bundelkhand—the region between the Jumna on
the north and the Vindhyas on the south and between the Betwa on the east and
the Tons or Tamasa on the west. The name is derived from the Bundellas who
established their rule there in the fourteenth century. Previously it was known
as Jijhoti or Jejakabhukti and was ruled by the Chandellas from the ninth to
the fourteenth centuries. The principal towns of the kingdom were Khajuraho in
Chhatarpur District, Mahoba in Hamirpur District and Kalanjar in the Banda
District of U. P. Khajuraho still contains many beautiful architectural
monuments while Kalanjar had a strong fortress which strengthened the defences
of the state. Slier Shah was killed in 1545 when lie was directing the siege of
Kalanjar. Bundelkhand is now a part of Vindhya Pradesh which lies between
Uttara Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh within both of which some parts of the old
Bundelkhand have been merged.

The antiquity of the Mahabharata is a matter of seemingly
constant debate. Some put in the time range of 500-400BC, while others put it
to be 500AD that the great epic was first written and composed. Whatever the
final truth, a significant step has been taken towards it recently, when
researchers at the Indian Institute of Science found an annotated copy of the
Mahabharat by no less a figure than Chanakya, the celebrated Prime Minister of
Chandragupta the Mauryan Empire. This sets the date of Mahabharat to at least
as far back as 320 BC. Chanakya writes under the name of Vishnugupta, and he is
the same man as Kautilya who composed the Chanakya Niti and Arthashastra texts,
which give aphorisms for the governance of a kingdom.

I have thought it necessary to give the Story of the
Mahabharata in as complete a detail as possible, so that the reader may be able
to judge for himself whether the explanation, equally detailed and covering all
important points, is consistent throughout, and the Epic a picture of all
systems of Philosophy and religion. This is as necessary for the reader as the
writer, for the object of both is not ingenuity of explanation but Truth, and
the work must stand and fall as a whole. If the Mahabharata is really a picture
of Philosophy and Religion, then it follows that all Sacred Books of the
Hindus, from the Vedas to the Puranas, are of the same character, and must be
re-interpreted to be properly understood. The effect of this on our present
ideas and theories would be difficult to describe. The wisdom of the East has
always had a message for the world, and perhaps the need for it is greater than
ever today. And nowhere can we understand the fundamental unity of all Life, –
in Science, Philosophy and Religion –equally applicable to the wisdom of the
sage and the humblest task of the average man as we find in the Sacred Books of
the Hindus.

All the great systems tell the same tale; only we do not
understand. But a comprehensive account of all the essential problems of life,
examined from all conceivable points of view, is given in the Sacred Books of
the Hindus, and they need only to be re-interpreted to be understood. This need
hardly cause surprise, for Sanskrit is admitted to be the oldest of all
languages. Language is but a vehicle of thought, and what wonder if Sanskrit
Philosophy and Literature, the oldest of all, can explain the secret of other
languages too?

We are naturally proud of science and civilization; but
some of the more recent works of philosophy have shown what a tremendous
civilization existed thousands of years ago, and it is not impossible to
believe that the great faiths have something fundamental in them, and the
reconciliation between Science, Philosophy and Religion, which we are
attempting today, was accomplished in the far off past.

I do not know if all that I have written will easily be
accepted as true. For centuries we have been accustomed to different ways of
thought, and it seems difficult to begin again, almost anew. But the Sacred
Books of the Hindus have always been believed to be mysteries of the Divine and
not idle tales, though no one has proved them to be such so far, and it seems
difficult to imagine that any proof can be forthcoming now.

Whatever might be said about speculations and theories in
general, a re-interpretation of the original text, following a certain definite
and well-understood method, is a matter of fact, not faith; and nothing is more
easy than to come to a conclusion whether it is correct or not. The present
interpretation of the Mahabharata is based on the ancient method of
Letter-analysis, known to all students of Sanskrit, but never before applied on
so large a scale; and it should not be difficult for the reader to decide for
himself whether it is correctly done or not. But if what I have written fail to
convince, I trust that others may succeed along this or some other path. If it
but stimulate a fuller and closer study of the Sacred Books, the present task
will have been more than amply repaid.

The yoga system of Patanjali is not a philosophical system. It is empirical.
It is a tool to work with. But still it has a philosophy. That too is just to
give an intellectual understanding where you are moving, what you are seeking.
The philosophy is arbitrary, utilitarian, just to give a comprehensive picture
of the territory you are going to discover; but the philosophy has to be
understood.

The first thing about the philosophy of Patanjali. He divides human
personality into five seeds, five bodies. He says you don't have one body; you
have layers upon layers of bodies; and they are five. The first body he calls
annamaya kosha -- the food body, the earth body, which is made of earth and is
constantly to be nourished by food. Food comes from earth. If you stop taking
food, your annamaya kosha will wither away. So one has to be very alert about
what one is eating because that makes you and it will affect you in millions of
ways, because sooner or later your food is not just food. It becomes blood,
your bones, your very marrow. It circulates in your being and goes on affecting
you. So the purity of food creates a pure annamaya kosha, the pure food
body.

And if the first body is pure, light, not heavy, then it is easy to enter
into the second body; otherwise it will be difficult -- you will be loaded.
Have you watched when you have eaten too much and heavy foods. Immediately you
start feeling a sort of sleep, a sort of lethargy. You would like to go to
sleep; awareness immediately starts disappearing. When the first body is loaded
it is difficult to create great awareness. Hence fasting became so important in
all the religions. But fasting is a science and one should not fool around with
it.

Just the other night one sannyasin came and she told me that she has been
fasting and now her whole body, her whole being, is disturbed -- tremendously
disturbed. Now the stomach is not functioning well. And when the stomach is not
functioning well, everything is weakened, the vitality is lost, and you cannot
be alive. You become more and more insensitive and dead.

But fasting is important. It should be done very carefully; one should
understand the functioning of the annamaya kosha -- only then. And it should be
done under proper guidance -- the guidance of one who has moved through all the
phases of his annamaya kosha. Not only that -- one who has gone beyond it and
who can look at the annamaya kosha as a witness. Otherwise fasting can be
dangerous. Then just the right amount of food and the right quality of food has
to be practiced; fasting is not needed.

But this is important because this is your first body and, more or less,
people cling to their first body; they never move to the second. Millions of
people are not even aware that they have a second body, a deeper body, hidden
behind the first sheath. The first covering is very gross.

The second body Patanjali calls pranamaya kosha -- energy body, electric
body. The second consists of electric fields. That's what acupuncture is all
about. This second body is more subtle than the first, and people who start
moving from the first body to the second become fields of energy, tremendously
attractive, magnetic, hypnotic. If you go near them, you will feel vitalized,
charged.

If you go near a man who lives only in his food body, you will be depleted
-- he will suck you. Many times you come across people and you fee] that they
suck you. After they have left, you feel depleted, dissipated, as if somebody
has exploited your energy. The first body is a sucker, and the first body is
very gross. So if you live too much with the first -- body-oriented people, you
will feel always burdened, tense, bored, sleepy, with no energy, always at the
point of the lowest rung of your energy; and you will not have any amount of
energy which can be used for higher growth.

This type, the first type, the annamaya-kosha-oriented person lives for
food. He eats and eats and eats, and that's his whole life. He remains in a way
childish. The first thing that the child docs in the world is to suck air, and
then to suck milk. The first thing the child has to do in the world is to help
the food body, and if a person remains food addicted, he remains childish. His
growth suffers.

The second body, pranamaya kosha, gives you a new freedom, gives you more
space. The second body is bigger than the first; it is not confined to your
physical body. It is inside the physical body and it is outside the physical
body. It surrounds you like a subtle climate, an aura of energy. Now in Soviet
Russia they have discovered that photographs can be taken of the energy body.
They call it bioplasma, but it exactly means prana. The energy, elan vital, or
what Taoists call chi, it can be photographed now. Now it has become almost
scientific.

The University Grants Commission or UGC, which oversees the functioning of
all universities in India, has ordered that all these educational institutions
must celebrate International Yoga Day on June 21.

You have these two eyes. These two eyes for the Taoist are very significant.
Only modern science has been able to see the truth of it. These two eyes are
not only the visible eyes. These two eyes represent the male and the female in
you. Now modern science says that the brain of man is divided into two
hemispheres, and one hemisphere is male, the other is female. The right side of
your mind is feminine, and the left side is masculine. So your one eye
represents the male in you, and your other eye represents the female in you.
And when your male and female meet inside you, that meeting is what is called
'heaven' -- that meeting, that inner communion of your male and female.

Jesus says, 'When your two eyes become one there will be light.' He is
talking like a Taoist alchemist. When your two eyes become one, there will be
light. When your two eyes become one -- when your male and female disappear
into each other -- that is the ultimate orgasmic experience. What you feel
making love to a woman or to a man is only a glimpse of it, a very fleeting
glimpse. It is so momentary that by the time you become aware of it, it is
already gone. You become aware of it only in the past, it is so fleeting. But
it is a glimpse, a glimpse of the meeting of the man and the woman. This is an
exterior meeting. It is a miracle that it happens even for a single moment, but
there is a deep possibility. And that has been the work of Tantra, Tao, Yoga,
and all the great secret teachings of the world: to help you become aware of
your feminine and your masculine inside -- what tantrikas call Shiva and
Shakti, and what Taoists call 'yin' and 'yang'. The polarity, the positive and
negative in you, the day and night in you -- they have to meet there.

THE LIGHT OF HEAVEN CANNOT BE SEEN. IT IS CONTAINED IN THE TWO EYES.

But unless they become one you will not become aware of it. But you cannot
see it unless they become one, then it is released. Then there is a great
explosion of light. Zarathustra calls it 'explosion of fire'. Lao Tzu calls it
'explosion of light'. It is the same.

There are numerous examples of interaction between mathematicians and
scientists of Ancient India, Arabia and Greece. Here is a list of some of them,
along with the famous mathematicians referred to in the stories.

The Lilavati is a treatise on arithmetic and algebra written by
Bhaskaracharya in A.D. 1150. It is a part of his bigger mathematical work
Siddhanta-Shiromani. Lilavati was translated into Persian by Akbar’s courtier,
Faizi. Th Lilavati and its translation include many stories of merchants and
travelers from Lanka to Ayodhya carrying treatises of science across
regions.

Aryabhata, a premier Indian mathematician and astronomer, born in A.D. 476,
wrote at the age of 23 his book called Aryabhata- Tantra in Sanskrit when he
was residing at Kusumapura or Patna. He discovered the diurnal motion of the
earth causing the division of time into night and day. Long before the time of
Copernicus he discovered the truth that the earth moves round the sun. He also
knew the real reason for the eclipses of the sun and the moon, that the moon
and other planets have no light of their own and are illuminated with the
reflected light of the sun and that the earth and other planets move round the
sun along elliptical ways.

Indeed, Sanskrit literature tells many more stories. The Panchatantra is
replete with stories of travelling scientists, and the two epics the Mahabharat
and Ramayana also have their share of examples. Tulsidas's
Ramcharitmanas faithfully copies the original and reproduces these
incidents, though later versions of the epics such as Kamban's Tamil Ramayana,
and modern-day versions such as Devdutt's Sita, do not.

Aryadeva, a Buddhist author who flourished in the second century A.D., was
one of the earliest exponents of the Mahayana form of Buddhism. In his
histories of Hindu and Buddhist icons, he lists one of the Boddhisattvas as
being a mathematician who taught at Takshila and Varanasi, whose students
included the Greeks. He speaks of how they visited Aryavarta, literally meaning
the territory inhabited by the Aryans. In the Institute of Manu (c. A.D. 200)
the term is applied to the whole space of northern India between the Himalayas
and the Vindhyas from sea to sea. When exactly this region came to be occupied
by the Aryans has not been fixed with any precision. It must have been many
centuries later than the Rig Vedic Age (c. 2000 B.C.) when the Aryans occupied
Afghanistan and the Panjab only. The migration eastward and occupation of the
whole of Aryavarta must have taken many centuries after the Aryans had made
their first establishment in the Punjab.

Among Islamic writers, Asad Khan, who was the minister of Ibrahim Adil Shah
I, Sultan of Bijapur (1535-57) and was a very capable administrator and
diplomat, also records European mathematicians visiting the courts of Akbar and
the southern Chola kings. His greatest achievement was a diplomatic victory won
in 1543. In that year the sultans of Ahmadnagar and Golkunda entered into an
alliance with the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar with a view to attacking
Bijapur. Asad Khan concluded peace separately with Ahmadnagar and Vijayanagar
and thus broke up the coalition. Bijapur was saved for the time. Asad Khan,
being the Prime Minister for many years of Emperor Aurangazeb had access to
some of the historical documents preserved in the Mughal court.

After examining the five great systems of Philosophy
separately, they combined them in sets of two and three according to their
affinity and range, and constructed on them their four great systems of
Religion – Vaishnavism, Saivism, Buddhism, and Jainism, with Sakti worship as a
connecting link between all. An account of this has been given earlier. All the
ancient Sacred Books of the Hindus are an attempt to embody the truths of
Science in systems of Philosophy and Religion in different forms, referring
them to the daily life of the average man. The gods of the Vedas personify the
five great creative energies of life, separately and together, at different
stages of their evolution; the Brahmanas express the same idea in terms of
creative and selfless Action or Sacrifice: the Upanishads and the systems of
Philosophy deal with the same subject more directly; and the Puranas and the
Epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata represent them in Story form.

In the Bhagavad Gita, the most sacred book for the Hindu
way of life,
Bhagwan Krishna is quoted as saying "I am the great epic among the
stories," a "wink" at the manner of education prevalent in Idnia at the time.
These epics cover the whole range of human thought, from Physics to
Metaphysics, from pure Monism of God to qualified Monism, Dualism, Agnosticism,
and Atheism; and from the Soul of Man to his Buddhi, Mind, and the Senses of
Knowledge and Action. Indeed, it would be difficult to conceive of anything
outside this range, and this would explain the statement in the Mahabharata,
"That which is in it, is elsewhere. That which does not occur here, occurs
nowhere else."

But this was not a mere theory or abstract speculation; it
was intended to bear on the life and conduct of the average man. All of us are
not at the same stage of evolution and development. There are five great
creative energies in Man, from the Soul to the Senses, and each of us has more
of the one or the other specially defined. Many of us are at the stage of the
Senses and see all things in their light; others are at the Mind stage and can
think; some, however, are at the Buddhi stage, with doubts resolved and mind at
peace; while a few are at the Soul stage, ever acting in a spirit of Sacrifice,
undisturbed by change, and always happy at heart. Each of us can understand the
problem of life in the light of his own character and the stage of his
evolution and development; and the five systems of Philosophy and their
corresponding Religions, bearing as they do on the five great creative energies
of life, provide for each individual an ideal and a goal according to his
peculiar point of view.

The ultimate Truth is indeed one, conceived in the light
of one God, one Nature, one Soul, and one Law of life, viz., Sacrifice; but we
have to rise by stages to grasp this Truth. This is the peculiarly sublime
character of the ancient systems of thought, giving to each individual an ideal
according to his stage of development and yet comprehending the whole. They are
not complete or rival systems, as some imagine, but different stages and
different landmarks in our study of the problem of life, each leading to the
other, until we attain to the ultimate Truth, and view all things in the light
of God and the Soul. That is Vedanta, the essence of all Knowledge, even as the
word implies, when we see all life as perpetual Sacrifice, and the whole
universe eternally happy and good.

The Kumbha Mela occurs once every three years, and cycles over four venues over
a period of twelve years. While these venues are all on the confluences of
important rivers, there is a legend relating to how these four places were
selected and why the kumbha mela occurs once every twelve years in these
places.

Once, on returning to the forest, Chudala found her husband in samadhi, a
state of trance, with his body completely emaciated. Although she knew that
this state signified an inner ripening, as a seed hardens within a shrivelling,
drying fruit, she felt harrowed by the spectacle. She tried to awaken him, but
could not. She went back to the capital and returned a few days later, to find
him still in samadhi.

At this she created with her subtle breath simha nada, that is, a roar
sounding like a lion that reached to the skies and reverberated through the
forests, frightening wild animals into a stampede. The king’s samadhi, however,
remained undisturbed. Chudala was pleased, but at the same time she wanted to
awaken him. She shook him vigorously, but it was like shaking dead wood. She
now tried a last remedy. She left her own body and transmigrated into his and
awoke him from within. He opened his eyes little by little. Chudala went back
to her own body and, assuming again the form of Kumbha, sat at a distance away
and sang the Santa tune, that rare melody, and it soothed and pleased the king
as he gradually came back to the mundane world.

Kumbha said, “You were in deep meditation and I am pleased with your
development. Do you feel assured that you will never more be affected by kama,
krodha, and moha?” “Yes,” said Sikhi-Dhvaja. “I am above all passions now. I
have complete confidence in myself. I feel my soul pervading the entire
universe. I find myself in a state of bliss at all times.” Kumbha said, “You
have nothing to fear any more. Now let us travel and see the
world.”

They visited different countries, forests, and deserts. When they
relaxed in some ideal romantic surrounding, Chudala felt an overwhelming love
for her husband and desired his company as a woman. But she could not reveal
herself to him yet without spoiling the fruits of their labours. Kumbha took
leave of the king on the pretext of having to visit the world of the god Indra
on an urgent summons and, as Chudala, went back to the capital to attend to
state matters; she returned to him in two days, as Kumbha, but with a sad face.
“I notice a lack of joy in your face,” said Sikhi-Dhvaja. “Something has,
perhaps, made you unhappy. May I know what it is?”

Kumbha said, “A dreadful thing has happened to me. You are, after
all, a friend of mine and I cannot hide anything from you. While returning from
Indra Loka I met the sage Durvasa. He was wearing rather flashy robes, as it
seemed to me, and I could not help cracking a joke with him. I said, ‘O Sage,
you are dressed like a damsel going in search of her lover. How is that?’ I
should not have joked with a person like Durvasa, whose bad temper is known in
all the worlds. His eyes blazed with anger and he said, ‘Young fellow, you are
frivolous and silly. Normally I would not have noticed you, but today you have
forced yourself on my attention and uttered insulting words. For this you are
going to pay a price. Since damsels seem to be so much on your mind, you shall
be transformed into a damsel at sunset each day and regain your manhood at
daybreak, for the rest of your life,’ and he was gone after uttering this
curse. Now what shall I do?”

“You have helped me through my troubled times,” the king said. “It will be
my turn to help you now. Utter the
Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra (mp3). Do not worry. Nothing is lost by this curse.
I shall always treat you as my guru and friend, whatever may be your form.” “It
is a great consolation that you will not mind it,” said Kumbha. “Let nothing
worry you,” said the king, and he elaborated a philosophy of acceptance. As the
evening wore on and dusk came, Kumbha excused himself from continuing in the
presence of the king. He half withdrew behind a partition and cried
pathetically, “O King, the curse is taking effect. Long tresses have appeared
on my head, with flowers and scent.” Unperturbed by this information, the king
continued his meditation.

“Where there was a flat chest,” began Kumbha—“I am shy to mention it, but
you are my friend—breasts, firm and round, have appeared.” “Yes, all that must
happen as expected,” said the king without any emotion, coldly. “Ornaments have
appeared, sparkling with gems, around my neck. I wish you could see me.” “It is
all a part of the mask,” said Sikhi-Dhvaja. “What do the details matter? All
that will last until the morning. You will get used to the change.” “My clothes
have grown longer and drape me.” “You should have expected it.” “My voice has
changed, do you not notice it?” “Yes, I do. Naturally you should have the
appropriate voice for your changed state,” the king said without turning. “My
hips have grown wider, and—oh, friend, this is indeed frightening—I am a
complete woman now. I am no longer Kumbha. I repeat, I am a complete woman now.
May I come before you?” “Certainly, I never told you to go into concealment.”
And now Chudala emerged as a woman of great beauty. The king looked on this
vision unemotionally.

She said, “My name is Madanika.” “Yes?” said the king without any
agitation. As the night advanced, Madanika came closer to the king and put her
arm around his neck. “Be my husband. If you don’t take me someone else will,
for that is the curse. What is wrong in your becoming my husband every night?”
The king agreed, for it seemed to him all the same, whatever he did. She said,
“Let us marry this very minute, since this is an especially auspicious night.
Let us spend the night as husband and wife.”

At that very hour they were married according to Gandharva rites, and that
night and the following nights enjoyed the utmost conjugal bliss. She found
that the king, though responsive, remained untouched by any experience. He took
no initiative at any stage, although he denied her nothing when she made a
demand on him as a wife. Chudala felt happy that her husband had come through
the first test successfully.